Safecrop Holdings to acquire Star Health & Allied Insurance

Safecrop Holdings, a consortium with WestBridge AIF, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and Madison Capital, has signed definitive agreements with the shareholders of Chennai-based Star Health & Allied Insurance Company to purchase their shares in Star Health, the country’s leading standalone health insurer.

Safecrop Holdings to acquire Star Health & Allied Insurance

Safecrop Holdings, a consortium with WestBridge AIF, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and Madison Capital, has signed definitive agreements with the shareholders of Chennai-based Star Health & Allied Insurance Company to purchase their shares in Star Health, the country’s leading standalone health insurer. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Existing shareholders of Star Health include Star Health Investments and funds managed or advised by ICICI Venture, Tata Capital and Apis Partners. The transaction is subject to regulatory and certain other approvals, a statement by Star Health said.

Kotak Investment Banking, Evercore and Mizuho Securities (Singapore) acted as the financial advisors to Star Health and its shareholders. Nishith Desai Associates and Trilegal acted for the purchasers and Platinum Partners acted for the company.
Speaking on the investment, Jagannathan, chairman-cum-MD, said, “We have started from a humble beginning and have come to this level with an excellent team work. We feel new investors, with their abundance experience and golden touch, will enable the company to scale further heights.”

Star Health is the largest health insurance company with a market share of 10.6% in health insurance across all the general insurance companies in India as on March 31, 2018. It was founded in 2006 and provides health insurance, overseas mediclaim and personal accident policies.

“We are really excited about Star Health, a dominant market leader in the retail health insurance industry. We believe the retail health insurance industry will continue to grow at a healthy pace in the coming decade, driven by increasing penetration. This aligns well with WestBridge’s investing philosophy and long-time horizon. We are highly confident of Star’s business model and believe that Star will continue to lead the retail health insurance space” said Sumir Chadha, co-founder & MD, WestBridge Capital.

The company employs 11,000 people providing insurance coverage to 1 crore lives. Star Health has a pan-India distribution platform and an integrated ecosystem to tap the retail health insurance opportunity with 434 branches and offices, 2.4 lakh agents and tie-up with 8,500 network hospitals.